‘I’m sure they do,’ Diana said. ‘After all, we’ve had him to ourselves for two weeks.’

‘What’s this?’ David asked, coming out to join them. ‘Isn’t it cold!’

Ben said to him, ‘You could have dinner here or with us. Oh, and there’s stuff in the fridge, Aunt Diana, for the morning.’

‘How thoughtful you all are!’ Diana exclaimed. ‘Much as I hate to let you go, D, I think you’d better, don’t you?’

David gave her a rueful look before he went over to where Constance was musing over her bulbs.

‘I’m off now, Constance.’

‘Off where?’

‘To dinner with my family and then home to my basement suite.’

‘Don’t you live with us now?’ Constance asked.

‘Off and on,’ David said, and he bent down to kiss her goodbye.

Diana watched them and then turned to Ben to send her greetings and thanks back to his family with him.

‘Goodbye, D,’ David said. ‘It’s been wonderful. I’ll see you Wednesday night.’

‘Or before,’ she said, kissing him. ‘At least phone. I’ll want to hear the news.’

Diana left Constance in the garden to see the men out and then checked supplies and the casserole before she called Constance in.

‘I must say it’s nice to be home,’ Diana said, as they sat down in their accustomed chairs after she had fixed them drinks and lighted an already laid fire.

‘You’re a homebody,’ Constance said.

She didn’t, of course, know they’d been away, but Diana no longer felt such despair at that thought, for the trip had been good for Constance, and, if it couldn’t nourish her in memory, it could nourish Diana, counter the settled pain in her bones with the knowledge that somewhere she could still stride out, swim; and in her luggage, which she would unpack after dinner, there were several small sketches she had made of the desert in precious hours to herself with no one around to make references to Grandma Moses. There had been only Constance’s voice back in the house, reading to David.

How hard it was to put away all those new clothes, which would be useless now until summer, but Diana might be able to wear the muumuu David had bought her occasionally in evenings a little later in the spring.

‘There’s my robe!’ Constance said, holding up the bright orange garment with recognizing pleasure.

Diana could learn from that happy accident to look for clothes which reminded her of what Constance had worn years ago in the hope that it might happen again and Constance wouldn’t persistently feel that she had no belongings of her own but was, instead, mysteriously provided for from other people’s wardrobes.

When the phone rang at ten the next morning, Diana answered it with confidence that it would be David, full of the drama Mary had created in his absence.